"I'm out," Burkle says, rising to yield his seat at the table to her. She took over his chips, ready to take on the only two players left: Catsimatidis and the game's dominant bettor so far, Ruffin. Hudson wanted to buy a new pile of chips to properly challenge them; sorry, Kate, it's against the rules.

Burkle took a seat next to Catsimatidis' teenage daughter, Andrea, who was only 10 in 2000 when Almost Famous came out. Andrea gazes at the actress, looks at Burkle and asks: "Is that your daughter?"

"Um, no. She's my poker coach," Burkle responds with a smile. If he was embarrassed by the question, he masked it well.

On the 36th hand Catsimatidis lost his last $6,500 to casino veteran Ruffin. "John, it was a good run," Rahr says. "The consoling part is you weren't the first or second out, and your daughter is proud."

"I went down in flames," Catsimatidis says, dejected.

"You went down in style," Burkle says.

"You did it exactly the right way--with beautiful ladies all around," Hudson says.

Meantime, Ruffin patiently stacked his chips. His style was much like the way he turned that $1 billion profit on his casino earlier this year. He bought the dark, dirty New Frontier and the 41 acres surrounding it for $165 million in 1998. While Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson spent billions building megaresorts on adjacent land on the Vegas Strip, Ruffin remained an outsider, content to run the dingy Frontier for meager profits while the value of the ground beneath it swelled. When the time was right, he pounced on the opportunity to sell for 7.5 times what he had paid for it.

Ruffin and Hudson teased each other for six hands. On the seventh Ruffin put Hudson all in. She called. And Rahr stepped in: "Katie, baby, let's see what you've got," he flirts. She turned over her cards and lamented: "Oh my God, I'm screwed." Rahr: "Yeah, you are screwed."

Thus did Ruffin win that final hand and the entire Forbes 400 poker game. Lesson: Never play poker against a casino mogul. The house always wins.

Afterward, as everyone posed for pictures, Rahr handed Ruffin a check for $25,000, made out to the billionaire. "Hey, Phil, things are a little tight right now. Wait until Thursday to cash it?" Rahr said. He had told the joke several times that night. Everyone laughed again anyway. Catsimatidis also wrote a check to Ruffin on the spot for $25,000; Blixseth had left a check earlier, with the payee's name left blank. But Ron Burkle had forgotten his checkbook; he asked for Ruffin's address, then left for Paris, where he and Hudson would be caught by the paparazzi as they walked outside his hotel (he says they aren't dating). Burkle's advisers say he sent a check and a congratulatory note to Ruffin's Wichita post office box when he returned from France the following week.

A month later Ruffin's assistant informed forbes he had donated $125,000 to the American Diabetes Association. We received the following e-mail from Ruffin a few days later: "Matt, so far no check from Burkle. I paid his share to the charity. Sorry to hear he can't come up with $25 thou."

Turns out even a billionaire's check can get lost in the mail. Ruffin received a new check a few weeks later.